Making every life count: Ensuring equality and protection for persons with disabilities in armed conflicts

Abstract

Armed conflicts and natural disasters both cause impairments and pose acute challenges for persons with disabilities. On 26 December 2004 the so-called Boxing Day Tsunami in the Indian Ocean took the lives of 200,000 people. Of these, four times more women than men were killed, while children constituted up to one third of the fatalities. Persons with disabilities were among those who fared worst, unable to flee or resist the wall of water. They were less able to access life-saving aid in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. They were also the most vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and exclusion. In more recent years the conflict in Syria - which had caused the displacement of more than two million people by November 2013 - has had a devastating impact upon persons with disabilities. At its 10th session in September 2013, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee) issued a statement imploring all concerned in this conflict to safeguard persons with disabilities.